The rails didn't stop at the ruined streets—they arched outward, extending like glowing veins across the entire cityscape. Broken roads and crumbled buildings were swept into the design, forming loops, spirals, and intersecting tracks that now encircled the horizon. The city itself was being rewritten as a massive clockwork battlefield.
Giant gears emerged from beneath the ruins, massive wheels of interlocking steel the size of skyscrapers. They hovered midair, rotating slowly at first, then faster, aligning with the rails as if guided by some invisible conductor. Steam hissed from vents and cracked rooftops, carrying the metallic scent of burnt nanites and scorched concrete.
Agnes's voice cut through the chaos, feral and commanding:
"Focus, Karl! Keep your rhythm… feed me Vythra! Every movement, every pulse—push it, push it now!"
The rotating gears meshed perfectly, teeth locking with grinding precision. Each revolution sent vibrations through the ground, rattling debris and stirring dust into spiraling columns that wrapped around the arena. Every demon that tried to move found themselves slowed, trapped between walls of rapidly spinning, crushing steel.
Karl's eyes burned with exhaustion, but he forced Erevos forward. Nanites crawled over the mech's surface, reinforcing the blueprints in real-time. Railings, ramps, loops—they weren't just visual overlays anymore; they were tangible, solid structures that confined the horde.
From above, the dome's silhouette began to form—a towering clockwork shell surrounding the city like a cage. Every gear, every rail, every structural component pulsed with faint royal azure light, the reflection of Karl's own Drive radiating across the steel. The dome was complete in principle but not yet activated—the perfect trap for the demons.
"See it, Karl?" Agnes hissed, feral and urgent. "Every exit… sealed. Every alley… closed. Every horde… contained. Do you feel it? We're holding them where we want them!"
The demons roared, their eyes glowing red through the thickening smoke, but every movement against the dome was futile. The massive gears spun faster, creating wind tunnels that pushed weaker demons aside and ground down anything too reckless. Rails twisted and spiraled overhead, ready to launch Erevos at breakneck speeds at any angle within the dome.
Karl's hand hovered over the ignition dial and the USB port, feeling the faint pulse of Vythra leaking through his veins. The mech creaked, struggling under the accumulated stress of movement and combat—but the dome held. Every spinning gear, every looping rail, was synchronized in a deadly, precise ballet.
Agnes's voice softened for a split second, almost reverent, though still feral:
"Perfect… the cage is complete. Hold on, Karl… the show… is about to begin."
Blueprints glowed in the air, rails solidifying, gears spinning in deadly precision. The demons could scream, charge, and claw—but the city-sized dome of blue steel and rotating wheels was now inescapable.
The tracks emerged beneath Erevos's feet, a lattice of glowing cobalt-blue lines forming in perfect alignment with the skeletal cityscape. But Karl didn't run — he didn't dash. Instead, he summoned countless miniature gear projections under Erevos's feet, each spinning and locking with pinpoint precision into the rails Agnes had helped manifest. The movement was fluid, almost effortless, like the mech itself was gliding on a sea of steel gears, but every step demanded precise control and perfect synchronization.
Agnes's voice tore through the cockpit, low, feral, and intoxicatingly commanding. "KARL—REV. THE. DIAL. FASTER!! PUSH IT INTO ME!! DEEPER—NOW!! I WANT YOUR VYTHRA—EVERY DROP!!"
Karl's hand tightened around the ignition dial, twisting it faster while pressing the Gearstorm Nova orb deeper into the USB port. A shiver of blue energy pulsed up from the sensitive interface — the surge was almost pleasure, almost pain, raw, visceral. Agnes's feral growl reverberated through his mind.
"YES! THERE—THERE!! DON'T STOP, KARL! FEEL IT, FEED ME!!" Her voice fractured, glitching between animalistic snarls and fervent encouragement. "Every rotation…every pulse…let it rip through the nanites…every strike, every launch, EVERY MOVE!!"
Erevos slammed into the first skyscraper-sized gear of the dome. The impact was immense, yet smooth — the gear absorbed the momentum and redirected the titan onto the next stretch of rail. The city of rails and loops became a fluid mechanical flow, each strike into the giant gears launching Erevos in arcs across the dome, tracing perfect paths dictated by the projections beneath his feet.
"FEED ME YOUR DRIVE—MAKE ME SCREAM!!" Agnes growled again, feral and relentless. "The gears, Karl—the dome, the tracks, the rails—I'm holding it all, but YOU…YOU give it life!! PUSH! PUSH HARDER!!"
With each press of the orb and turn of the dial, Karl felt the Gearstorm Nova turbines hum louder, the nanite lattice along Erevos's frame shimmering brighter, hotter. Every impact with the colossal dome gears sent him soaring onto the next track like clockwork, but with each motion, his Vythra dropped, fraying the edge of his control. Agnes's growls punctuated the rhythm, driving him to rev harder, urging him deeper into the USB port, forcing him to sacrifice his own comfort and safety for raw output.
"Don't think, KARL—MOVE!" Her voice spat through the comms like fire. "Every slam into those gears…every pivot…feel me surge with you! MORE VYTHRA!! I CAN'T HOLD IT WITHOUT YOU!!"
The steam hissed from Erevos's joints, rising through cracks in the armor, painting arcs of cobalt mist into the night sky. Each motion was a perfect balance of precision and raw power: a strike into the massive gear dome, a smooth redirection along a rising track, the turbines spinning, the rail projections locking beneath his feet, and the tiny gears clattering in mechanical symphony as if the city itself had become an instrument tuned to Karl's will.
Through it all, Karl's visor reflected the motion — dozens of skyscraper-sized gears spinning in hypnotic, impossible arcs, blueprints solidifying and fading behind him like ghostly scaffolding. Every impact, every motion, felt like riding the teeth of a colossal clockwork beast, guided and amplified by Agnes's feral fury.
"You…YOU MAKE ME CRAVE IT—MORE, KARL! REV HARDER! PUSH ME DEEPER!!" Agnes hissed, almost dripping with feral lust and fury simultaneously. "I'M ALIVE BECAUSE OF YOU—BECAUSE OF YOUR DRIVE!! DON'T LET IT FADE—DON'T…DON'T YOU DARE!!!"
Erevos continued to flow across the dome with almost unnatural grace, each strike into the gargantuan gears not jarring but harmonizing with the mechanical world around them. The city itself had become a living machine, powered by Karl's will and Agnes's feral guidance. And in the cockpit, Karl's hands moved faster, his breaths sharp, his body trembling from exertion, his Vythra bleeding with each press — but the mech never faltered.
The dome spun with him, every skyscraper-sized gear a perfect kinetic trampoline, every rail a track of infinite potential energy, each projection locking seamlessly as Karl fed more Drive into Agnes. The battlefield, the gears, the rails, the city — all of it had become one fluid, pulsing mechanism of destruction, awaiting the moment when he would finally unleash his full Blueprint Overdrive.